A queer thought shot into his head, a surging back of his old pride. He was not the wood-mouse, nor was he the weasel. He was the ferret, and Aleck Curry was an unknown beast, ponderous and mighty, but with that vulnerable spot which the ferret always found in its prey. And this time Carter knew he was fighting for more than himself. He was fighting for a man who was dead, and whose spirit was there on the rock watching them. He was fighting for Peter. And he was fighting for a woman.
His thin arms and legs fastened themselves about Aleck like things made of wire steel instead of flesh and bone. Over and over they rolled, twisting, bending, breaking, heads and faces gouging on the rocks, and always Carter's quickness made up for the other's weight and strength.
Their breath came in panting gasps as the nails in their boots struck fire from the rock. A moan of anguish came from Curry when Carter got the terrible thumb gouge in his eye, and a gasp of agony from the Ferret when Aleck bent his head back until his neck nearly broke. There was something merciless and horrible in the struggle.
A little cloud ran under the face of the moon. It was followed by a larger and darker one, as if spirit hands were drawing a curtain between it and the tragedy on the rock. The light of the stars seemed to grow dimmer, as if they, too, shrank from this thing that was happening between the sea and the sky. And over the edge of the cliff came a wailing sob of wind that was already beginning to croon its death song for the victim. Minutes were hours. Gasps, chokings, blows and the panting of breaths were the ticking of the seconds. Moments of stillness, when the two lay crumpled and twisted as if they had died together, were like eternities. And foot by foot they had rolled until they were close to the edge of the cliff.
Then it was that a shudder of deeper horror seemed to creep through the night. A black cloud swept under the moon, hiding entirely what was happening at the cliff's edge, and this cloud moved away with appalling slowness. When the moon looked out again one object remained where there had been two. For a long time it lay crumpled there, sobbing for breath. Then it crawled away slowly, dragging itself painfully over the rock, and disappeared at last into the thick growth of the burned-over lands which reached far to the north.
Under that same moon, hours later, Peter came to the edge of Five Fingers. Out of the sky all sign of cloud was gone and the stars glowed in radiant constellations. Peter knew that it was midnight, and as he looked down from the crest of the slope, where he had first walked hand in hand with Mona when he was a boy, a strange and gentle silence rose up from the bottom-lands to greet him. Five Fingers was asleep. He could see no light and at first he heard no sound. Then came to him the old familiar tinkle of silver bells on distant cattle, and the soft murmur of the sea that was never quite still where it ran in and out among the rocks of the Pit at the end of Middle Finger Inlet.
For a space he stood looking down where the dark shadows of the cabins lay in a great pool of mellow light that was like a gossamer mist of silver and gold. His heart beat fast, so fast that he clutched a hand at his breast and swallowed hard to get his breath. Down there, within sound of his voice, was Mona—and all at once his manhood seemed to leave him and he wanted to shout wildly through his hands like a boy, calling her name, rousing her from sleep, shrieking at the top of his voice that he had come back. A sort of thrilling madness possessed him, but of all his desire only a choking sob rose in his throat.
He walked down the slope and he saw Pierre Gourdon's home among the scattered cabins. It was there he would find Mona, if——
His heart skipped a beat. If anything had happened, anything—sickness—accident—if she had gone away! Two years was a long time. Two years might have brought—a change.